


dante's inferno

by kenhwan (orphan_account)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Death, Implied Huang Zi Tao | Z.Tao/Wu Yi Fan | Kris/Oh Sehun, M/M, Multi, Other, Recreational Drug Use, Underage Drinking, historically innaccurate, the 80's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 14:09:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15121109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/kenhwan
Summary: It hits 88 in December, and 130 in July.





	dante's inferno

**Author's Note:**

> idk what this is but if you want more of the 80's death valley universe lmk

Death is in the name of where they live. Just outside of Death Valley National Park, Furnace Creek , in Mid-Southern California. The days are hot and the nights are hot, and for 5 months of the year, days never leave the triple digit temperatures. It’s easy, if you grow up there. It’s harder if you move there. Nothing but heat and desert for as far as they eye can see. 

It hits 88 in December, and 130 in July. 

Sweltering heat and kids trying to keep up with the outside world, trying to stay afloat. They highschool they go to is 40 miles out, in a town named _Beatty, Nevada._ The nearest groceries are an hour away, in Pahrump, Nevada. After that, there’s nothing except land until Las Vegas. 

The population has started going down, and it’s been noticeable as families have kids and move to cities and more _friendly_ residential areas. It was known that people here were more open minded, more spiritual, you had to be. It made it ideal for Asian immigrants to settle, in fear of moving somewhere large and loud and over populated with wealthy, confederate-conservative white people. 

Luhan’s the only young guy around here that really throws parties, or the only person that throws parties at all really. Zitao thinks the adults appreciate it secretly, a way for their kids to actually communicate. 

Death Valley. July 31st 1989.   
11p.m.

By the time they get to Luhan’s party ( not that they were invited ), Johnny is already drunk from being out at Dante’s View, and Sehun is already dazed out of his mind on whatever he self medicated himself with pre their arrival to pick him up. 

Zitao notices the license plates of the old, sand-worn pickups that desert kids inevitably get for their 16th birthdays if they’re lucky enough. 

_**San Bernidino County**. 2 hours out. If they’re here, it means they’re from the northwestern side of the county. The kids that have Death Valley instead of Los Angeles. Mojave desert kids, probably. More specifically Searles Valley. With their alien stories and their butterfly knives. He can guess which ones they are. Probably Wu Yifan ( who Zitao is perhaps overly infatuated with), Park Chanyeol, and Kim Jongin. They always make an appearance, all sharp eyes and cold glares, handsome and mean and stone cold. _

_**Nye County**.Pahrump kids. An hour out. He’d notice the blue and dusty chrome anywhere, and planned to avoid it as much as possible. At 16 years old, Huang Zitao did not need anything to do with Lee Taeyong or Kim Dongyoung or Im Jaebum or Park Jinyoung. All pretty, pretty boys that couldn’t keep literal blood off their hands for a day. Jaebum and Taeyong getting into knife fights and gang wars and everything in between, and Dongyoung and Jinyoung really slutting it up for them. Not that he blames them. _

_The truck next to it is Nye County as well, but an old red one with an almost flat tire and a cracked wind shield. He knew that one too. That no doubt belonged to Son Hyunwoo and his ‘gang,’ of 7, although they were more like brothers that liked to get drunk. Amargosa Valley kids that would never intentionally pick a fight, just liked to have a good time._

_He notices more Mojave kids, from Tecopa, and more Nye kids from Beatty ( he knows them from school, buncha hooligans really)._

The door is open, has been propped that way with someone’s lost t-shirt shoved under it, and there’s already a girl crying on the front porch. 

Luhan’s parties are always this way, in an abandoned cabin way into the park. Word gets around quick in Death Valley, especially in the half barren desert, half residential areas. It’s hard not to when the largest town in the area tops off at 1000 people. 

He says they start at 9 so people will show up fashionably late at 10 and well-- Everyone is normally shitfaced within the hour, because Lu Han doesn’t provide chasers and everyone is already hot and dizzy. He wouldn’t be surprised if, much like Johnny, everyone is half drunk before they even got here. 

It’s a hidden paradise really. It gets lonely in Death Valley, and the seclusion and heat can easily drive a teenager insane. Most of the time it does. Alot goes on out here under the desert moon that adults don’t know about, and they’re just getting started. 

Death Valley. August 1st, 1989.  
1 a.m.

The hands that found themselves under Zitao’s croptop, tracing the ink on his shoulder blade is Sehun’s, or maybe Yifan’s. He’s not really sure. It’s dark, and everything is hazey, and there’s lips on his neck and a song he wouldn’t be able to make out through his muddled brain and radio static if Johnny wasn’t slurring out the lyrics to Don’t Dream, It’s Over off-time with Neil Finn’s vocals. 

It ends and the beginning of Everybody Wants To Rule The World begins, and Zitao whines, though it’s a positive noise. He loves Tears For Fears. And all he knows is he’s sweating, and Sehun’s fingers feel like they’re burning into the pentagram on his back, and Yifan’s lips are searing holes into his collarbone. What he doesn’t know, is what the cup being thrusted into his hand contains, but he drinks it anyways. 

It burns his throat, and he loves every second. 

He loves all of this, until there's a yell, and glass breaking, and Yifan is ripping away from him as fast as he can, throwing himself across the room. He doesn’t know when the knife comes out, when any of them came out, actually. But he’s ducking back into Sehun, who’s quickly sobered up and throws Zitao behind him before the first jab happens. 

When every Pharump kid is into the all out fucking brawl, he knows it’s all over. There’s no more fun. Only punches and knives and unconscious bodies that he doesn’t want to believe are otherwise. 

At 1:38 A.M., Im Jaebum gets a knife to the collarbone, and falls. Within seconds, Park Jinyoung has a gun in his hand, aimed at none other than the boy who stabbed his love. 

At 1:39 A.M., Kim Jongin’s lifeless body hits the floor to Rebel Rebel by David Bowie and everything runs in slow motion. Zitao’s bleached hair streaks red with the blood of his friends. 

He looks around, panicked, as he drags Sehun through the masses of on-lookers to find Johnny, or Jongdae, or Chanyeol, or someone that can get them the hell out of here. Instead he runs right smack into Yifan, who’s literally drenched in red, and through an exchange of looks, Yifan agrees. He yells something and shoves Zitao and Sehun out, out, out, into the desert air. 

It’s almost silent outside the cabin, with the door forced shut by whoever the last person out is, as more people joined them after seeing Yifan. The sudden quietness reminds Zitao that they’re alone out here, sends his brain into shut down, and everything goes black. 

He wakes up in the passenger seat, slumped on Sehun, who’s looking out the window with glazed, red eyes and a scowl until he realizes the older is looking at him. Sehun looks visibly relieved, but not happy or any more relaxed.

The illuminated numbers on the dash clock read ‘2:30’. They’ve been in the car for roughly 40 minutes, if they left soon after he passed out. He’s confused until Yifan speaks up. “We’re almost there.” 

“Where?” 

 

“Dante’s View.” 

Zitao makes a face at Sehun, confused, and tired, and semi intoxicated. “Why?”

 

Sehun in turn looks to Yifan. Zitao follows, then the only response is, “It’s nice there.” 

It might be nice there in theory, but Zitao knows things happen there.

It’s unbelievably easy to get away with things in the desert, in the middle of nowhere with no one to see or hear. He can’t count the bodies that have been thrown off there. Maybe Yifan was going to kill them, he thought, staring blankly at the oldest male. 

He gets a tap on the shoulder, and turns to Sehun, who’s holding out pills that contain god knows what. And he dry swallows them, cringing. He meets the younger’s eyes, who just nods and pulls Zitao fully into his lap, hands dipping into his waistband and tracing over the bare skin of his back. 

This is the first time he gets a look at the bed of the truck, where there’s a blanket and 4 people slung together and across each other in various forms and fashions. “Are those Mojave kids, Yifan?” He asks, already floating on the effects of the drug. His voice sounds weird and foreign, too breathy and high pitched for his current liking. 

“Yeah, baby.” Sehun mutters, and Yifan adds on, “Hanbin, Bobby, Seunghoon, and Jinwoo.” 

He closes his eyes, feeling fine as he drifts in and out of reality, into a an indistinguishable place where he’s there, and both of his boyfriends are there, and everything is okay. 

He feels lightheaded, explanations coming in and out of earshot as Sehun explains to him, well aware that he’s only half listening. The words he gets are “johnny” and “jongin” and “tecopa” and “satellite phone,” then lastly, “police.” 

He’s satisfied with what his foggy mind puts together as ‘someone called the police.’ 

He’s satisfied that his brain doesn’t function enough at the moment to comprehend what may have happened to Johnny, and what did happen to Jongin. 

He falls back into a state of sleep within moments. 

It’s strange, when he wakes up. He feels numb, and his limbs feel like jelly, and he’s propped up with the blanket in the back of the truck. In front of him, he sees 6 dark outlines, and 2 burning cigarettes butts, soon to be three as someone has just fired up a lighter.

He shakily gets up, moving to get with the other boys. One of them, (Hanbin?) is muttering a slurred, story-circle version of Dante’s _Inferno_. 

Somewhere between the 7th and 8th circles of hell, Sehun snorts something else and wipes at his nose, laying down next to where Yifan had previously situated himself. Zitao followed, though keeping a bit more distance, and stared up. He began wondering, soon, if there really were aliens up there. Then he thought about how Hanbin actually seemed really smart, remembering all of this. Enjoying it and thinking it through enough to memorize it. 

And then, a remark about stars from Jinwoo, and Zitao cringed at the thought he processed. “All those stars are dead, you know. They have been. As long as earth has existed they’ve been dead and we’re just -- We’re just seeing what they used to be.”

Really, that was going somewhere, but it trailed off into somewhat of a letter spam at the end of Zitaos mind. 

It’s cooler up here, at midnight and way up high. It feels nice, cools the sweat off their skin.

He imagines that later on, when the cleaning ladies come to do a sweep before someone uses the cabin as a vacation spot, they won’t find the dead bodies of at least 3, slaughtered teenage boys.


End file.
